The Project Gutenberg EBook of That Sweet Little Old Lady, by
Gordon Randall Garrett (AKA Mark Phillips)

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Title: That Sweet Little Old Lady

Author: Gordon Randall Garrett (AKA Mark Phillips)

Illustrator: Kelly Freas

Release Date: November 29, 2007 [EBook #23657]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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Transcriber's Note:

This etext was produced from _Astounding Science Fiction_ September
and October 1959. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence
that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor
spelling and typographical errors have been corrected without note.
Subscript characters are shown within {braces}.

[Illustration: That Sweet Little Old Lady]

_Usually, the
toughest part of the job is stating the
problem clearly, and the solution is then
easy. This time the FBI could state the
problem easily; solving it, though was
not. How do you catch a telepathic spy?_

BY MARK PHILLIPS

Illustrated by Freas

_"What are we going to call that sweet little old lady, now that_
mother _is a dirty word?"_

--_Dave Foley_

I

In 1914, it was enemy aliens.

In 1930, it was Wobblies.

In 1957, it was fellow travelers.

And, in 1971....

"They could be anywhere," Andrew J. Burris said, with an expression
which bordered on exasperated horror. "They could be all around us.
Heaven only knows."

He pushed his chair back from his desk and stood up--a chunky little man
with bright blue eyes and large hands. He paced to the window and looked
out at Washington, and then he came back to the desk. A persistent
office rumor held that he had become head of the FBI purely because he
happened to have an initial _J_ in his name, but in his case the _J_
stood for Jeremiah. And, at the moment, his tone expressed all the
hopelessness of that Old Testament prophet's lamentations.